A FAMILY wishing to rebuild a ruined 18-century farmhouse in Trinity which was requisitioned by the Germans in 1943 and deliberately demolished to create a training area for urban combat have lost their latest attempt to get planning permission.
The fate of Egypte Farm – between Bonne Nuit and Bouley Bay, not far from the rocky north coast – has been long-running saga stretching back more than eight decades.
The tumbledown farmstead has remained the same family ownership since 1936.
In the latest chapter, Environment Minister Steve Luce has decided to dismiss an appeal and to refuse permission to reconstruct the farm to form one three-bedroomed home and one outbuilding to create a garage and store.
In doing so, the minister was following the recommendation of an independent planning inspector, who said that the appeal should be rejected.
All sides of the argument recognise that this is a complex case which has largely hinged on whether the farm has been abandoned or not.
Although the farm and land around it remain in the Rice family, they only lived in it between 1936 and 1940, when Gordon Rice, a military officer, and his family evacuated to England.
Then, on 14 July 1943, Egypte Farm and neighbouring properties were taken over by the occupying German forces, who partly demolished the farm to train in and around.
Following the war, the Rice family returned to Jersey and lived in St Peter before emigrating to South Africa in 1947.
There is evidence that an estimate to reconstruct the farm buildings was obtained in 1949 but the £2,000 compensation offered by the British Government was about a seventh of the estimated cost; however, the nearby farmland was restored.
Although there was some limited contact between Planning and the Rice family in the intervening years, a formal planning application was not made until 2006.
The Rice family have since made several applications to rebuild the farm.
A 2015 attempt was approved by the Planning Committee in 2019. However, a third party appealed the decision and although an independent inspector recommended the appeal be dismissed, the Planning Minister of the day allowed the appeal and refused permission for the scheme in 2021.
The last application, made last year, was refused in April and appealed later that month by John Rice, the grandson of Gordon Rice, who first lived in the farm with his wife Gracie in 1936, a wedding present from his father, Alfred.
However, that appeal has now been dismissed. In his report recommending that course of action, planning inspector Philip Staddon assessed whether the ruined farmhouse – which sits in the ‘Coastal National Park’, where there is the “strongest presumption” against all forms of new development – had been abandoned.
At the appeal hearing, the family had argued that the property had not been abandoned but destroyed by deliberate act of war.
Planning, on the other hand, had argued that it had been abandoned, and while recognising that the house had been mostly destroyed by the Germans, it did not change the decision with regard to the “principle of the development proposed”.
Conceding that the case was “complex” and the property “runs in the blood” of the Rice family, Mr Staddon concluded, among other things, that there was “no evidence at all of any repair, protections or stabilising works for the standing structures in the post Second World War era, and no evidence that fallen building fabric has been kept, stored and protected for reuse.”
He said: “Taking all […] matters ‘in the round’ my objective assessment is that the residential use of [the farmhouse] has been abandoned, and that it cannot be regarded as an existing dwelling. Accordingly, I recommend that the appeal should be dismissed.”
Historic environment consultant Antony Gibb, who supported the Rice family with their appeal, said he would speak to the family before commenting on the decision.
